We need to conserve and waste a lot less energy. One advantage of residential solar is that it helps a person understand how much renewable power is really available on a day to day basis, and how much their lifestyle is subsidized by fossil fuels.

Speaking of residential solar:
Solar incentive quickens payback

Instead of paying money each month to customers who install solar panels, the new incentive is upfront and based on the amount of power a home's panels would generate during its first year.. a customer who installs 10 panels, which amounts to a 2-kilowatt system, would receive an incentive of $3,600 from Focus on Energy and then another $1,800 from We Energies. Throw in a 30% federal tax credit, and a roughly $17,000 solar system would end up costing a homeowner about $8,250, Wolter said. He estimates the payback period for solar now stands at about 17 years for homeowners and about 10 years for businesses

Ah, yes, fun with numbers.

Bryce's calculation assumes oil and electricity are, in essence, interchangeable. Well, not really. He should be comparing the amount of oil used to produce electricity, which is lost in his computation. Burning the oil to make steam and then drive a turbine results in more than half the energy in the oil going up the stack, so to speak. Furthermore, his calculation uses only the most expensive producer of renewable energy, that is, PV or wind, leaving out water power, which, as he notes, provides a substantial fraction of electricity supply. His calculation ignores the fact that some of the oil (and a large fraction of natural gas) is used to heat buildings or produce hot water, a function which could be directly be provided by solar thermal collectors. Using solar PV electricity to heat water to 120F is foolish.

Looks like another hatchet job from an industry oriented commentator. That's what we've come to expect from the WSJ.

E. Swanson

Many times here it has been stated that not all energy sources are created equal i.e. Wind and PV unreliable and electricity in general hard to transport. This may already have been argued many times as well, but as we slowly/quickly move past peak I have come to the conclusion that OIL is just way to important to continue to be used as a source of energy. Apart from reducing the world population to around 1 billion (which I know some will argue to do), how do we even begin to move off of an Oil based energy economy without using huge amounts of Oil in very things that will increase efficiencies and reduce our dependence on oil? For example at $500 a barrel what does that do the cost of thin film PV arrays and the blades for wind trubines? How many BTU's does it take to make a glass I.V. bottle versus one from a polymer? When you think about everything that oil does besides being used as a source of energy the interconnections are staggering.

I have to disagree with Westexas' numbers on solar energy. Most solar energy in use today is not electricity, but solar heat that does not trade and is therefore not part of the economy. This does not mean it's not actual energy that does an amazing number of things such as: heat my water, provide supplemental heat for my home (solar air heater, passive solar), dries my clothes, cooks some of my food (solar oven), etc. Using solar for heating things instead of for electricity is up to five times as efficient (around 60% for solar hot water, 12-15% for most PV), but heavily underutilized.

This is one of the major flaws of neoclassical economics: if it doesn't get traded, then it has no value. Hence, things like the environment, healthy relationships, quality of life, etc have no value. Unfortunately individual energy independence is "bad" for the economy, but good for everything else.

Stephen Hren
www.thecarbonfreehome.com

"solar panel producers like First Solar Inc. are lowering the cost of solar cells. On the day of Mr. Obama's speech, the company announced that it is now producing solar cells for $0.98 per watt, thereby breaking the important $1-per-watt price barrier"

Not sure where this figure came from but, I have found no such panels at that price.

I am in the market for panels ... any link would be appreciated

The Senate debate on the budget will be very interesting.

In any case, based on the article uptop, if we start with wind & solar equal to about 76,000 bpd of oil equivalent, wind & solar production would have to grow at about +20%/year for 20 years to bring them up to about 10% of current total US primary energy consumption.

When you really down to their energy outlook, I'm not sure that the Obama Administration differs materially from Peter Huber--who asserts that our total energy consumption will increase forever, because we will always find new alternative sources of energy to offset older depleting sources. This is is my major disappointment with Obama, he is basically promulgating the infinite growth model, we will just power our auto centric suburban way of life with cool new green sources of energy.

I suppose the only real difference with the Republicans regarding infinite growth is that the Republicans seem to believe that we can power infinite growth with fossil fuels.

Geithner's remarks are a start, but not complete. When we end percentage depletion on oil and gas, let's do so for coal and all of the other minerals which get such tax benefit. The list is available in IRS publication 535, on page 32, and include uranium, copper, coal, gold, and silver in the list where I counted 29 substances, plus oil and natural gas which are dealt with elsewhere. Surely if the administration wished to stop tax incentives for polluting substances, coal should be at the top of that list. Of course, the result will be an increase in electric rates probably before the ink could dry on such a proposal, so that is probably not going to happen. Since Illinois is, or was, a strong coal mining state, it isn't going to happen for that reason as well.

This suggestion was sent, by me, to WhiteHouse.gov at the time of the proposal to kill breaks for the oil and gas industry, and I haven't received any response as of this time.

We should kill all of the golden geese at the same time.

"We don't think that's good economic policy and we think changing those incentives is good for the country"

Yeah, right. What a joke. If Geithner really wants to change the incentives to consume energy, then how about:

- Abolish the mortgage deduction, a twofer removing the incentive to buy far more energy-guzzling house than one needs or even can handle, and the incentive to use far more energy-guzzling transportation (to get to said house) than one would use otherwise.
- Abolish FHA subsidies and other lavish handouts, for the same reasons. Limit any remaining safety-net subsidies to basic low-end housing only; taxpayers get socked enough without having to subsidize affluent peoples' heirs.
- Stop stimulus and other money going to reckless people now in over their heads. Override local zoning laws and make the houses affordable by converting them to duplexes and selling or renting the other half.
- Stop stimulus money going to new highways or highway expansions - if people buy (or rent) only what they actually need, instead of buying to speculate, there will be plenty of room for them in the duplexes. Exurban development will cease of its own accord and the highways will be superfluous irrespective of oil prices.
- Put an end once and for all to inane quasi-religious declarations from the government about "owning" houses. As someone pointed out in The Guardian (long enough ago that I can't find a link any more), if "ownership" were discouraged, people would become aware of the (utility) cost of housing, instead of thinking of it as manna from heaven. That would encourage them to consume only what they need.

Oh, wait, I was forgetting. Geithner has no plan except to keep his boss in power, so he's just into the usual feckless populist grandstanding.

I would rather see the oil and gas companies get the tax breaks than have Tax Cheat Geithners friends in the "Too Big To Fail" Industries get all the bailouts!

Any TAX on a company that is leveled by the Government in any of its sizes is a hidden tax on you. If you buy that companies product or buy from their customers you will be spending more money than you did before the tax was levied.

What Most Government folks do not think of is the simple pass the costs to the customers rule of every business. Raise the cost of doing business you raise the prices and or you increase the number of businesses that are there next tax season. Thereby giving the companies left more of the pie, and more ability to raise the prices for the consumer.

Great that they want to get rid of Big OIL because big oil seems to have been making more money than people want them to have made, but be careful. There will be a time when the USA might have to drill for OIL as a State Owned Oil company.

Which is even worse in my opinion. Ruins the way our country should be run.

Charles.

Nate, I am not certain why you believe bigger means lower cost or maybe I am reading too much into you massive consolidation theory.

The way I see it, the little guys who did not assume a lot of debt will do relatively better than the large independents or majors most of whose balance sheets are predicated on maintaining leverage to enhance ROI.

I have no interests in any unconventionial gas plays, but one of the operators I used to work with has a number of Barnett Shale wells that are several years old. At this point, they have paid out and are cash cows. It is very easy to get too enthusiastic and over leverage. Leverage makes everything look better until it stops working [which may be the new motto for the US and World economies.]

BTW, techniclly intangible drilling cost is treated as a deduction not a credit.

...nat gas goes to $20 per mcf

What's really interesting about this is that if nat gas requires a 75% subsidy as this $20/mcf suggests then gas companies are essentially government operations masquerading as a businesses.

Regardless the accounting tricks, before the price of NG approached anywhere near $20/mcf the economy would collapse [further] and we'd be burning the furniture to keep warm.

P.S. Inhofe's boys are probably loading bullets in the basement.

"A trader friend of mine says nat gas goes to $20 per mcf if this is enacted. Methinks the government is going to find out that 'renewable' does not connote 'equal' in short fashion...."

say what? $20 per mcf? this must be a wild speculation. we are at $4 per mcf now and it could shoot up 5 fold by enacting this? What are they trying to do do. kill us users?

The president wasn't lying when he said it's going to get worse before it gets better. but then, isn't that how it always is? of course it has to get worse before it gets better.
go to an alcoholics anonymous meeting, it always gets worse before it gets better.

but up 5 fold? good gracious!

where is my bailout?

i dont see the expensing of idc as a tax break. idc's have no salvage value and therefore, idc's are expensed.

idc's are sometimes appropriatly refered to as dry hole costs. despite all the science,3-d seismic,luck, skill and voodoo that can be brought to bear, dry holes are still being drilled. i just dont see any justification for amortizing these costs.

it's just the nature of oil and gas drilling that results in expensing a larger part of costs than other businesses.

'However, because our governments simply conjure up our currencies, they will be able to ensure inflation rather than deflation if they so desire.'

NOT! Governments cannot insure inflation without the risk of destroying their own currencies and their credit ratings. As soon as the purchasers of treasury instruments get a whiff of printing they will demand, and get, more interest for treasuries.

All the printing done to this point has either been locked up in foreign central banks as swap lines or US large banks to 'balance' (I use that word loosely) their books or used to off set loses at AIG and some other companies...that money was thrown into a black hole and will not effect the real economy except as more government debt. Bernanke's plan is to get those funds back if the consumer economy shows some signs of life. If those funds are injected into the real economy inflation will sky rocket, interest rates on treasuries will skyrocket, and any businesses still operating in the US will not be able to borrow at rates that will allow them to stay in business.

Choosing deflation. You make me laugh. That is the last thing the US Gov will ever do for reasons that even Brian Bloom should know.

IMHO gov'ts are way past "choosing."

Credit is not collapsing, it's disintegrating.

The US will have to honor existing FedRes notes.

Only when zero's are added to Ben Franklin notes
will hyper inflation be the problem.

But 1 quadrillion of derivatives is disintegrating.

Massive deflation.

"May 07, 2002

Revisionist View of the Great Depression - Part III
by Antal E. Fekete

III. INVISIBLE PILFERAGE

The Pharaoh's Treasure
According to the ancient Greek historian Herodotus the treasure of no Egyptian pharaoh was comparable in either size or value to the enormous hoard of Rhampsinitos. His treasury was housed in a huge stone building adjacent to the palace, and it was considered burglar-proof. The door was sealed by the pharaoh's personal seal and manned around the clock by armed guards. Rhampsinitos was present in person every time the seal was broken and the building entered. Therefore it was extremely disturbing when the pharaoh discovered that his treasure was being pilfered, albeit without any sign of unauthorized entry into the building. To find out what was going on the pharaoh caused a trap to be placed inside to catch any would-be thief as he was approaching the treasure-bins. To his utter amazement, on his next visit the pharaoh found that, while the trap had done the job of catching the would-be thief, this did not help him one iota to solve the mystery. More treasure was missing, together with the head of the would-be thief. There was no sign showing how the missing objects had been spirited out of the building. The identity of the thieves could not be established. As if someone had the supernatural power to enter the building invisibly and pilfer the treasure without leaving any trace.

Pilfering the Wealth of Nations
The Great Depression seems to have presented a similar mystery. Productive enterprise came under pressure to liquidate debt and inventory, so excruciating had the debt-burden become. Those firms that could not liquidate fast enough were themselves liquidated. The Wealth of Nations was decimated as scores of firms that still flourished only yesterday were going bankrupt. There was no sign whatever that the loss of wealth might be due to plunder or pilferage. Governments purchased nostrums prescribed by Keynesian and Friedmanite soothsayers to prevent similar disasters from happening in the future in the belief that the destruction of wealth was due to natural causes. But as depression has struck Japan in spite of taking the prescription, and as other countries appear to succumb to the Japanese disease, the peddlers of nostrums are open to charges of being impostors. In the absence of an acceptable theory explaining the Great Depression the danger of future depressions looms larger than ever in the horizon.

Our revisionist view presented here for the first time suggests that, far from being due to natural causes, the Great Depression was unquestionably the result of plunder and pilferage. The Wealth of Nations was being pilfered invisibly. Those responsible couldn't be caught because the thievery involved no physical movement of property. It is no less remarkable that whenever a dead body is found (such as that of LTCM, or that of Enron), the head is missing and the investigation of theft can proceed no further. Public opinion has been lulled into the false belief by the economists' profession and by the financial media that there is in fact no pilferage, and the phenomenon must be explained by the idiosyncracies of the capitalist system of production."

http://www.safehaven.com/article-601.htm

h/t Dan W at ashizashiz

Cut, Cut, Cut, the gas gently down the pipe stream,
Merrily, Merrily, Merrily, Merrily, life is but a dream.......

Russians will have their day of reckoning when they are out of gas.

So you are an expert on judging economists?
Wonder what Kunstler thinks of Wal-Mart’s 5.1% increase in sales?
Is that do to inflation or their increase in gas sales.

River -

While I cannot argue with authority regarding his economic prognostications, I certainly do not get a good feeling about his grasp of energy matters, particularly when he says things like the following:

"In my view, there are three energy paradigms that hold out some hope:

Hydrogen – which is a long way away from commercial reality.

Electromagnetic energy scavenging from the environment – which the physicists are dogmatically arguing is impossible.

Gold in modified format may be able to store electricity scavenged by both solar and wind – but this, too, is in the realms of “hypothesis” at present."

These are "energy paradigms"? (A rather meaningless phrase to begin with.)

As has been pointed out ad nauseam here at TOD, hydrogen is merely a means of storing energy rather than an actual energy source.

"Electromagnetic energy scavenging" and "gold in modified format"? What in hell's name is he talking about?

Anyway, I hope this guy's understanding of economics is far better than his understanding of energy, which appears to be just about nil.

I thought you were leaving, never to darken TOD's doorway again.

GE is a toxic company, that does not "Bring Good Things to Life"---
Let it die, I will drink a toast.

When the CPAs put a "going concern" clause in their opinion, that is a very polite and formal way of saying, "This sucker's going down!" They simply don't dare put going concern clauses in their opinions unless the firm is truly on death's door; it truly is an extreme action. I am hard pressed to think of an example where it was done and then the firm recovered.

I'll be very surprised if GM is not in Chapter 11, at the very least, by the start of 2010.

Nowhere -

No. 3, Government taking over GM, is the least desirable. When was the last time the US government did anything that was even marginally profitable or remotely cost-effective?Such an action would immediately be transmuted into the worst kind of pork.

No.2, Continue the Bailout, may not be as bad as No.3 but will prove to be money down the toilet. (Or perhaps like giving a blood transfusion to a corpse.)

No.1, Let GM go Bankrupt, while painful, is more in accordance with what is going to happen anyway, so why stand in the way?

Overall, the argument about saving jobs is weak, because GM has for a long time been trying to get rid of as many jobs as it could, bailout or no bailout. It would probably be cheaper for the government to give every autoworker a large one-time gift of money than to continue with this slow hemorrhaging of taxpayer money.

If there is a certain size market for automobiles in the US, you can be certain that some business entity will supply that need. So, if GM does go under, we are not going have a new car shortage.

The US auto industry has had an uncanny ability to always shoot itself in the foot, and their shortsightedness and ineptitude has finally caught up with them. I have had personal experience in dealing with two of the Big Three, and I have never been very impressed.

In all of my experiences with GM management, and talking with GM employees, it's the management. If you want GM to survive, you must purge ALL MANAGEMENT. All of them, middle managers, executives, etc. When you bring in replacements, only 1/4 of the number of people should fill the gaps. There is so much bureaucracy and waste at GM, it's absurd. However, none of this will happen. GM is doomed long-term, so bankruptcy is the only option, no matter how painful it is.

As with any other company that can not float along with the tide and make its way in the world they should do the bankrupt route and re-organize if possible.

We as tax payers should not have to pay for them or even half of the other companies and individuals we just bailed out.

Sure this method will hurt a lot of people. But maybe the Earth-Quakes will tell people what they should have known all along and were be hoodwinked by the EASY Money Futures they were being sold.

I have in the past invested in the companies 401(k) programs, but I have always taken the tax hit and used the money after I left the compaines, They were after all giving me 3% of my wage as a bonus. I never planned on it being my retirement fund, I am not that gullible.

Retirement is for those who are dead. Most of the people I know who are retired per se are still doing things and still making money, so they aren't living it large somewhere on the savings accounts.

GM should as it goes down hill be able to sell all those cars left over and spend that money on giving their workers a nice small going away present.

The Country will ache at not having X or Y Gm car out there, but the other auto places can design one like it in a few years anyway.

Bailing them out will not help them think how to better use the money they have been given so far. We end up just spoiling them.

Charles.

GM Goes out of business & gets auctioned off and Ford (and maybe? Chrysler) have enough business to be able to survive and be profitable.
All three are NOT going to survive. Let the market decide who will fail and who will survive.
NO MORE BAILOUTS!

Best is what Orlov says---let the auto companies die and let remaining cars be hoarded after that, treated like the valuable dinosaurs they are in energy terms (each one embodies 90 barrels of oil in its production, someone said here once). Let unemployed people find work fixing up the old cars on the roads, increasingly rare spare parts will be a problem but I bet some people will start little shops to produce parts and equipment locally. Let people stop using their cars and let people start selling their extra apples or corn or potatoes out in front of their mailboxes because people who don't wanna drive their cars and risk wearing the precious things out will be happy to shop locally.

Let cars be used for hauling heavy things and when they can't be avoided, increasingly for only the most necessary trips-----taxi services will be a good local business maybe. So the most important thing is to stop new cars from coming down the pipeline...that will stop a much more severe crisis later because people will be more used to managing without a car. GM should go bankrupt ASAP and all the creditors should be out of luck so nobody tries going into this losing polluting business again.

there are lots of those people Ron - well intended but ignorant about the scale of the problem. It's like giving lessons on how to avoid jellyfish while swimming when Moby Dick happens to be coming up behind you - mouth agape.

True, but it is a mass quantity item. If we all turned off chargers, that would be millions of watts total savings.

Just think how much we could save by everyone turning off their TV, computers, lights, everything except the refrigerator?

The idea may be more for illustrating that a phone charger wastes energy when not in use, so imagine that TV, or that cable box... I might also mention that today's phone chargers are now switching power supplies instead of transformers. Old wall-wart style transformers waste more power when not in use than the new style chargers, to the extent that it made little difference whether they were being used or not, just a matter of whether or not they were plugged in.

I bought one of those plug through meters that monitors the real time power draw from gadgets. The truth is that 'it all depends'.

I found that the biggest energy hog in the house was the fridge/freezer (1 KWh a day). Most small gadgets on standby took about 1-2watts. As a result I don't bother turning them off, I leave them on standby. However, our old HiFi system took 10watts on standby, and had been sitting there quietly burning money for about two years.... also the modem for our wireless network took 20 watts, and was also on 24/7. Now at least
I turn that off each night on the way to bed.

Our family consumption has been creeping up again, now about 7KWh a day. I hope to get that down to 5 KWh a day soon.

Boy aren't I glad I live in a TV/Cable-Free household. We have a TV sitting just over my left shoulder from where the Computer is set up in the living room, but we watch movies on it, and don't watch tv on it.

One less bill. One less nibble of electricity. One less headache watching shows that kill my brain cells, after all I enjoy alcohol much better than most of the tv offerings these days.

Charles.

Ps, Newspapers and the internet get me all the news I care to read.

I'd like to find a combination DSL modem and wireless router with an actual on/off switch. To turn either off I have to unplug them. Then I have to plug them in, in order (modem first), to use them. So I occasionally unplug the router but never the modem. It's just a pain.

I've put it in terms of the export situation (what else?). Indonesia's final production peak was 1996. Net exports fell in 1997, but rebounded in 1998, so that 1998 net exports were only about 9% below the 1996 rate. However, look at it in terms of remaining cumulative net oil exports at the end of each year. At the end of 1997, Indonesia has shipped 22% of post-1996 cumulative net oil exports. At the end of 1998, after a year over year increase in net oil exports, Indonesia had shipped 28% of post-1997 cumulative net oil exports (EIA).

Globally, we are seeing the same thing, albeit at a lower rate. Each year, we consume a larger percentage of remaining cumulative net oil exports.

For better or worse, one reason to burn through them rapidly might be that a lot of the infrastructure costs nearly the same to carry whether it's used at a high rate or a low rate. The tradeoff might conceivably be closer to "high rate vs. no rate" than anyone would know how to handle peaceably.

Read your post - then happened to scroll to the top of the page where my rotating quote was the following;

“Of all races in an advanced stage of civilization, the American is the least accessible to long views… Always and everywhere in a hurry to get rich, he does not give a thought to remote consequences; he sees only present advantages… He does not remember, he does not feel, he lives in a materialist dream.”
—Moiseide Ostrogorski (1902, 302-303)

Interesting comment, WNC. I think that this largely boils down to plain old human nature. I have had several conversations (arguments?) with a co-worker along the lines of your post. A bit of context: He is some 40 years my senior, and a die-hard cornucopian. Without apology, he routinely fires up his "land yacht" mobile home for cross-country voyages, burning untold quantities of fuel along the way. His employment history over the years has included some work down in the oil patch, and along the way he has become deeply convinced that energy resources are abundant. Period. Full stop.

During our conversations, I have observed two main themes to his comments. I'll attempt to paraphrase them here:

1. "If only ..., we would have all the oil that we need." Criticism is generally leveled at environmentalists, liberal politicians, and regulation, and oblique reference is made to enormous reserves that are sitting untapped because access has been denied.

2. "If and when the oil actually does run out at some point in the far distant future, we can turn to ..." Generally, the solution which is offered up is well out of reach, for now. Fusion is a favorite. Frustration is often expressed that we aren't promptly implementing such solutions, if I'm so darned worried about fossil fuels.

In summary: we don't actually have a shortage, and even if we did, it wouldn't be much of a problem. The human mind is extremely adept at conjuring up excuses for doing the things that we want to do, and, properly motivated, it can resist an awful lot of attempts at logical persuasion.

The lesson, to me at least, is that many people need to be clubbed over the head before they will recognize scarcity.

Me, Me, Me. I got my oil, let them find their own oil.

Seriously, I believe it has to do with the concept many economist believe in, that if 'X' runs short and the price goes too high, then 'Y' will come and take 'X's place. There is no end to replacement commodities. Of course that concept is wrong in a finite world.

I'm pretty sure this has been discussed thoroughly.

It is a collective action problem. Energy is fungible. If WE don't use it, THEY will. This works on an individual, community, national, and international level. Why not use up all the oil we can import if China is just going to use it to their advantage if we don't?

This is why I don't buy the argument that government always do things less efficiently than private enterprise. Maybe if you confuse efficiency with maximum short-term profits (as everyone does). But in the longrun, it doesn't make much sense to burn up finite oil in a Hummer just because you can... of course, we might as well, or the Chinese will get to. :)

Here's something that might interest you:

Nutrient Pollution Chokes Marine And Freshwater Ecosystems

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/02/090219141533.htm

Wasting P even as it rapidly depletes, and killing aquatic ecosystems in the process. What a clever ape we are!

The draw down of their aquifers is simply terrifying. Peak fresh water seems to be moving up the limiting resource ladder fairly quickly.

Hello Darwinsdog,

Thxs for the info. I have stated before that for most people their eyes glaze over at the pro & con statistics of Climate Change. We could get more done for Peak Everything Outreach by lots more weblinks and discussion on habitat decimation and specie extinctions.

I worry quite a bit about the problems with bee and bat decline, too. I am disappointed that 0bama hasn't moved this way up on the priority list. We will have 100% employment again if we are forced by Nature to hand pollinate.:(

From feeble memory: we have some cacti that can only be pollinated by bats--it might be very painful if humans have to climb over these plants to hand pollinate.

I support well-regulated and sited windpower.. the industry has been making improvements, and significant ones, but there is more to do. But it's hard or impossible to know just how much damage to birds the coal-fired sources are responsible for. The rain of mercury into the watersheds in New England are stressing and mutating the entire ecosystem here. Wind is imperfect, but convince me that it isn't an enormous improvement over the procurement and burning of FF's for our electricity.

This is the Audubon Society's current statement on windpower.
http://www.audubon.org/campaign/windPowerQA.html

Protecting Birds and Wildlife: While Audubon strongly supports wind power and recognizes it will not be without some impact, production and transmission facilities must be planned, sited and operated in concert with other actions needed to minimize and mitigate their impacts on birds and other wildlife populations. Several federal and state laws require this and the long-term sustainability of the wind industry depends on it. Wind power facilities impact birds from direct collisions with turbines and related facilities, such as power lines. Wind power facilities can also degrade or destroy habitat, cause disturbance and displacement, and disrupt important ecological links. These impacts can be avoided or significantly reduced, however, with proper siting, operation and mitigation.

Feral cats have a much greater impact on bird populations than windmills, but no one dares talk about that.

Look at the scale.

Reduce window area of existing and replacement structures (very good for energy efficiency) and this will more than offset wind turbine mortality.

Boarding up McMansions is a very good first step :-)

Alan

I get the impression that there is a lot of support for wind powered electricity generation among TOD posters, presumably because it's considered a "green" or "renewable" source of power compared to fossil fuels, and that concern about bird & bat mortality is trivialized.

And when you were asked to produce actual numbers you slunk away.

So I'll ask you again - got numbers to back up your claims?

Citi is below a buck.

Did I really just see the Dow scroll across the screen at 6666.66?

Do you really think this thing isn't coming back?

What I really think (and hope) is that we are getting close to the paradigm shift when the 'success' of our society/culture will not be measured by an index of 30 companies that via iterations and law of large numbers are the best of the bunch at extracting finite resources, innovating, marketing, and repeating the process - privatizing the paper wealth and externalizing the environmental and future generation costs.

I have written here and elsewhere that all time highs forever have been seen in US equity indices, but this all depends on how you define it. We could have DJIA 20,000 in 10 years with any combination of a)rampant inflation b)survivorship bias, c)new SEC rules d)smaller population e)much fewer stocks so less to invest in, f)stock market playing much smaller role in economy, etc. By todays rules, no, it is never coming back - if history is a guide though there will be some sharp 30-70% rallies but history may not be a guide this time as there is systemic lack of confidence in system.

Some new socio-political system is on the horizon - I am hopeful and petrified. And probably early.

I think the economy might bounce back a bit this spring or summer. Low prices will tempt people to shop, whether it's for houses or clothes or stocks.

But in the long run...no, it's not coming back.

Oh it can come back. An inflating currency can do that - raise even stock market prices.

Also 60 Minutes had a segment on the growing violence in Mexico:

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/02/26/60minutes/main4831806.shtml

It says that 90% of the weapons the criminals use come from the United States.

The interview with Mr. Marti points out one of the falacies in the thinking of the rich in the United States. The rich always seem to think their gated communities will protect them. They won't.

I've spent a bit of time in Columbia, and it is by far the most dicy place I have been (and I have wandered the planet quite a bit). It is actually quite cosmopolitan in some areas (Bogota is a quite European), but you step over a line that has very different rules.

One big reason such ideas don't work is that land prices tend to increase the closer one gets to the center of a city. That fact means that it's too expensive to farm there or build low cost/low density housing there.

Sorry to say, you missed our New World Foundation meeting at "Shinning City on a Hill" community center back on 1 April 1984.

E. Swanson

The Transition Towns movement is building rapidly because it brings together a variety of people who have been active over the year for some sort of societal change focused on either more justice, more ecological thinking, less television, what have you.

I am involved with Transition Boulder County and recently took the basic Transition training. I can say this: the movement has some important strengths, especially in that it does not claim to have the solution to anything. The basic idea is to get together with your neighbors and think about how to increase the resilience of your community to whatever may threaten, be it low fossil fuels, climate change, or economic instability. Principles borrow from permaculture, use behavior change analogies, and introduces new ideas, such as that of the "initiating group" planning at the outset, for its own replacement or evolution.

In my mind, given the uncertainty, those of us who have decided that one of our strategies will be community-building should find a role within Transition.

Residential Construction Trends in America’s Metropolitan Regions (EPA, 2009) (PDF)

US Census residential building permit data for the 50 largest metropolitan regions was examined over an 18 year period (1990 to 2007). Specifically, the amount of permits issued by central cities and core suburban communities was compared to the amount issued by suburban and exurban communities. The main goal was to clarify: 1) if there has been a shift toward redevelopment; and 2) in which regions the shift has been most significant.

The permit data showed that, in several regions, there has been a dramatic increase in the share of new construction built in central cities and older suburbs. Specifically, in roughly half of the metropolitan areas examined, urban core communities dramatically increased their share of new residential building permits. For example:
• In fifteen regions, the central city more than doubled its share of permits.
o In the early 1990’s, New York City issued 15 percent of the residential building permits in the region. Over the past six years it has averaged 44 percent.
o The City of Chicago saw its share of regional permits rise from 7 to 23 percent over the same period.
o Portland, Oregon went from 9 to 22 percent.
o Atlanta, Georgia went from 4 to 13 percent.
• The increase has been particularly dramatic over the past five years.
• Data from 2007 show the shift inward continuing in the wake of the real estate market downturn.

I lived in Atlanta for most of my life. I used to hike in the woods next to the Chattahoochee River, in an area inside the Atlanta City limits which still had woods when I was young. We used to go water skiing on Lake Lanier after the Buford Dam was built. Some years later, after living in California during the drought in 1975, I returned home to find that Atlanta already had a big water problem. It's only become worse over the years and last summer, during the drought, there were thoughts that Atlanta would need to be evacuated if the lake ran dry because there would be no way to extinguish fires without water.

It's been known for decades that the Colorado River water flow was allocated during a period of high flow, thus under normal conditions, there would not be enough water. Since then, the population using that water has exploded and it looks like there's going to be a severe drought this year. Good luck on getting more rain. It's spring, the beginning of the Dry Season...

E. Swanson

The McPaper rounds it up to 12% of all mortgage holders:

A record 5.4 million American homeowners were either behind on their payments or in foreclosure at the end of 2008, the Mortgage Bankers Association reports.
That translates to almost 12% of mortgage holders, up from 10% in the July-September quarter and up from about 8% a year earlier.

http://blogs.usatoday.com/ondeadline/2009/03/record-numbers.html

So, it took three quarters to rise from 8% to 10%, then one quarter to rise from 10% to 12%.

Is this trend -
a) parabolic,
b) exponential, or
c) hyperbolic?

Vote now!

"admit that we have limited control over our emotions and instincts"

I love that line, but doubt more than 1% of the population would understand or accept this. Too many believe in "free will" and "in god's image" and too few understand biology.

"legislate ourselves away from these instincts"

A great idea IMO, but it can't work if 99% of the population does not understand the "legislation" under consideration - and if their god tells them otherwise (e.g. population control - ask catholics, russians or iranians ...).

IMO, as conditions get worse, we are much more likely to act on instincts and much less likely to act on reason.

Good article, but I have say...the bit you quoted sounds like it's more about Americans than about humans in general. Few societies are as in love with large vehicles as Americans. And obsession with happy endings...I don't think that is hard-wired. (Seeing British and Japanese TV shows for the first time was quite a shock for me...even the children's shows don't necessarily have happy endings.)

The "separate from nature" part I'm not sure about. At the very least, it's far more pronounced in the west, and in particular the US. For example...if a society believes in reincarnation...that suggests that humans are not apart from nature. If you start out as a cockroach and work your way up to human, obviously humans are privileged...but not separate.

Interesting. Thanks for the insider view.

'the relative calm of 2008 was largely the result of the government disbursing billions of dollars of oil wealth throughout the country, hence creating the biggest well fare state in the planet with close to 80% of the population dependant directly or indirectly on government jobs'

Nawar...What is so different about the current welfare state and the welfare state of Saddam Hussain? I have read and seen video of terrible things that the dictator Saddam did. But, wasn't Iraq more stable under the dictator than it will be after the US leaves? I cannot see where this 'war on terrorisim', or whatever it is currently called, has done any good for the Iraqi people or the US. How do you view this? Thanks.

If there is one big 'take out' I have learnt from the last 12 months its that all my assumptions and the price of oil can "turn on a dime".

With this sort of volatility, money creation and general voodoo crap going on the only thing about the future that is predictable is its unpredictability -we are in the eye of chaos IMO.

Nick.

Sorry to hear that. I lost my job a few months ago, and haven't found anything yet.

Sorry to hear about the layoff, Frugal. It has been happening around me, where other operators are cutting back, parking vehicles, shutting down wells, etc. I can't see shutting all of them down until I absolutely have to, but drilling equipment is different. I heard of one drilling contractor, confident thqat things were going to come back, parked 17 air rigs but kept a crew on for a couple of months to carry out all maintenance operations, but let them go when there was still no business.

Good luck, and I hope something pops for you.

Sorry, as well.

Yeah. The future is definitely now. Aside from the resume' and the cold calls.. you might consider writing up a bit of your thinking on 'big stuff' .. what's going on around you, what it seems like from your perspective here and now.. what's important for you personally.. think about goals and dreams, the more 'out there' the better, just put it all down. It might spur some useful notions on where to go from here, and it might be a really interesting view from a totally unique place in history.

Just a thought. Hang in there!
Bob